Eisenhower’s Cold War Policies Chapter 15, Section 4

President Eisenhower Eisenhower was already a national hero due to his leadership of Allied forces during WWII. He easily won the presidential election of 1952 against his Democrat challenger Adlai Stevenson.

Massive Retaliation Eisenhower was convinced that a strong military and a strong economy were essential to winning the Cold War. He did not want to ruin the nation’s finances by maintaining a large standing army.

Massive Retaliation Eisenhower wanted to rely on the threat of nuclear weapons to keep America safe from attack. Eisenhower’s policy of threatening the use of atomic weapons to preserve peace became known as “massive retaliation.”

Massive Retaliation Eisenhower cut military spending by $16 billion by reducing the size of the army. At the same time he increased the number of nuclear bombs from 1,000 to 18,000.

Brinksmanship Brinksmanship, or the willingness to go to the brink of war to get the other side to back down, worried many people who felt it was a dangerous game. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defended the policy by stating that, “…If you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost.”

The Suez Crisis Eisenhower’s goal in the Middle East was to prevent those nations from allying with the Soviets. However, in 1956 French and British troops invaded Egypt to retake control of the Suez Canal, and Russia threatened rocket attacks at Britain if they did not remove their troops.

The Suez Crisis Eisenhower put US forces on alert and threatened to nuke the Soviet Union if they attacked Britain. The Brits and French called off their invasion and the crisis ended, but from that point forward, Arab nations began accepting aid from the USSR.

Covert Operations Threatening nuclear annihilation could prevent war, but Eisenhower knew it could not prevent the spread of communism. To prevent communist uprisings in foreign countries, Eisenhower decided to use the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Covert Operations When Iran’s prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, seemed ready to make a deal to sell oil to the USSR, the CIA sent agents into the country to arrange a coup and install a government that would be sympathetic to the US.

Covert Operations The following year, the US secretly trained Guatemalan rebels to overthrow the democratically elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. ▫Guatemala suffered 30 years of civil war that killed 200,000 people, most of them peasants.

Covert Operations The US continued to worry that the Soviet Union was setting up plans to add Middle East nations to the USSR. He asked for permission from Congress to use military force whenever he felt it necessary to help Arab nations resist communism. This became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.

Khrushchev Stalin died in 1953 and by 1956, Nikita Khrushchev emerged as the leader of the USSR. Privately he denounced Stalin’s policies as barbaric, but in public he continued to denounce capitalism and boast the benefits of communism.

Khrushchev Khrushchev embarrassed Eisenhower when Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane flying over the USSR. Eisenhower said it was just a weather plane, but Khrushchev then produced the pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

Khrushchev Khrushchev was also able to brag of the scientific accomplishments of the USSR after they launched Sputnik, the first man- made satellite in Americans were shocked that the USSR seemed to be gaining a technological advantage.

Eisenhower As President Eisenhower prepared to leave office, he warned Americans about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, or the relationship between the military and defense industries.